Previous | Contents | Next

“Your lizard brain wants you to be average.”

— Seth Godin

When it comes to building a long term career in professional photography, many are called but few are chosen.

That’s another major lesson from our five decades in this business. Not everyone can make it to the top, although anyone can be busy if they slash their prices.

Busy is one thing. Busy, happy and successful is a bit more complicated.

Here are the key points you need to bear in mind if you want to stake your claim closer to the higher end of the market…

§

The first lesson they teach entrepreneurs is to not fall in love with their product, because it blinds their business judgment.

But we’re creative people. What we produce is an extension of ourselves. Detachment isn’t easy but we need to make the effort.

Because it’s not enough to love the craft of what we do.

First, accept you’re in business.

Second, embrace the fact that it’s a lot of fun making a profit.

Third, understand there are only two ways you can get a pay rise:

1. Maximise the average revenue per job.
2. Stick with low prices but work harder.

Productivity and cost control also come into it, of course.

The money’s in shooting pictures and selling them, but chances are you spend much of your time on other stuff.

§

You can’t succeed by following the crowd. If you follow the crowd you get what the crowd gets, and often they’re not making enough to live on.

If you’re concerned about new competitors eating your lunch, you can’t assume they’re not going hungry too. People come along, compete, and quietly fail. Don’t go down the same path they did.

And don’t think you can win a price war. There will always be more competitors where those came from.

§

Most people respond instinctively to competition by lowering their prices.

Before you do the same, calculate out how much harder you’ll need to work to make up for the fact that each job is making you less money.

it’s not hard to calculate, but not many people do it.

Think hard before you slash prices because it’ll be really difficult to claw your way back.

§ 

Sure you’re a good photographer, but there are three skill sets required to be a successful professional - people skills, business skills, photography skills.

As they say, photography skills are “necessary but not sufficient”.

§

Most people respond instinctively to competition by cutting their costs too. Fair enough, but take care where you cut.

It isn’t how much things cost you, it’s how much they earn.

§

What does it mean if your customers are paying the price you need, but there aren’t enough of them?

Or you’ve got plenty of customers, but they’re not paying enough?

In both cases you’re making headway, but the second is in the wrong direction.

Me, I’d rather stick with my day job and work on my high-end strategy than turn unsustainably cheap and cheerful. There’s no law that says you have to be full time to call yourself a professional.

In this respect photographers could take lessons from online entrepreneurs. Think of quitting your day job as a milestone along the way, not something you need to do to get started.

§

Like it or not, your customers don’t judge your imagery by the same standards as your peers, and your peers don’t pay your bills.

Sad to say, decades of experience tell us that the best photographers do not always run the best businesses.

That one’s a toughie for people who love their craft, and I hope you do, but it must be said.

§

It’s not easy competing in a free market. in which the barriers to entry are almost non-existent, and millions of enthusiasts are tempted to turn their hobby into a business.

And it’s not easy for many would-be professionals to accept that their photography skills are not enough to succeed. That people skills and business skills are just as important, as well as a clear understanding of what motivates the people in their viewfinders.

Finally, and to labour the point, it’s not easy to accept that the way to succeed is not to follow the crowd but to stand out from it. To do things differently from the competition, not to emulate it. And that once you head down the wrong path your chances of reaching your destination become increasingly remote.

But since there’s not enough room at the top for everyone, it’s probably good news, of a sort, that most people prefer to follow the crowd.

§

Is there a future for portrait and wedding photography, now that everyone owns a camera and can share their images?

Of course there is.

Having a camera doesn’t make me a photographer. Having a pen doesn’t make me a writer. Having pots and pans doesn’t make me a chef. 

But the fact that almost everyone can write, cook and take pictures makes those professions different from, say, orthopaedic surgery.

Surgeons get paid because we can’t do it ourselves. Writers, chefs and photographers get paid because we can’t do it as well, and we know that.

Which is the key, really.

You won’t get paid much if you aren’t much good.

You won’t get paid much if people don’t see value in your pictures.

And you won’t get paid much if you don’t get noticed.

Like musicians and writers, photographers need to be good at their art, at tugging our heartstrings and at making the sale.

Good at finding out what we want and giving it to us.

This book isn’t about photography, it’s about turning your photography into a sustainable longterm career — shooting pictures and selling them.

NEXT